Condoms That Change Color If You Have An STD Were Just Invented And It’s Literally Life-Changing

You’re hunched down in the chair at your university’s health center waiting room. You have giant sunglasses on, baggy, non-lettered clothes, and you’re staring at your phone, hoping no one notices you. Your name is finally called (a little too loudly) and you head down the white, clinical looking hallway. After ignoring the weight on the scale (you literally just ate), you undress and put on the assless, paper robe. You consider taking a Snapchat and saying “STD Testing lol” but you can’t because like, what if you have one? So you try not to cry when the doctor asks what’s wrong, when you open your legs (which is, ironically what caused this problem in the first place), and when you wait for a phone call that you hope will never come.

Ugh. It’s exhausting.

But for most of us, it’s life. Despite everything we know about the dangers of s-e-x, we usually go in there (or let people go in us) bare saddled. Unwrapped. Au naturale. You know, without a condom. It’s bad, and wrong, and dangerous, but eh. We kind of didn’t care because of alcohol. And spontaneity. And because it’s not like we’ll get an STD/STI.

It’s dumb. Obviously. College kids are prone to STIs because well, we fuck. And we fuck a lot. Still, most of us don’t think twice when we decide to forgo the condom. That is, until now. A group of, I kid you not, 13 and 14-year-olds have come up with an idea that would 100 percent get us the wrap it.

They call it the “S.T.EYE” (get it?) and basically it’s a safe condom. What does it do? It tests for STI’s without any invasive procedures, awkward non-phone calls, or uncomfortable doctor’s visit. Basically the condom will change colors if you’re fucked. Literally.

The condom concept includes a layer impregnated with molecules that attach to the bacteria and viruses associated with the most common sexually transmitted infections (STIs). These would then cause molecules incorporated in the condom rubber to fluoresce a certain colour in low light, according to the infection detected.

So the condom might glow green for chlamydia, yellow for herpes, purple in the presence of the human papillomavirus which causes genital warts, and blue for syphilis, explained the designers.

Muaz Nawaz, Daanyaal Ali, and Chirag Shah came up with the idea for the TeenTech Awards (which is basically a whole bunch of smart kids doing really intense science projects. AKA not for us). They managed to snag the top health innovation prize with their idea because it’s literally genius. While it’s not being developed yet, they hope to start working on it in the future.

The only downside is that you won’t really know if you have an STI until you’re in the position to put on a condom. But hey, better late than too late, you feel?.

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(yeahokaywhat)
Aspiring to be the next Tina Fey, Rachel spends her free time doing nothing to reach that goal. While judging people based on how they use "they're" vs. "there" on social media, she likes eating buffalo chicken dip, watching other people's Netflix, and wearing sweatpants way more than is socially acceptable.

It’s just an idea right now, but if it’s possible to develop that why not just develop a test strip that you can use alone? I don’t think anybody wants to find out they have an STD while having sex with somebody. The reason a test strip like this doesn’t exist is it takes days to culture bacteria, which is why you have to wait by the phone for 3 days to a week. And if you’re worried about STDs that much you probably aren’t a condom person anyways. The kids had good intentions, but there are all sorts of things wrong with this.